Fortescue Metals executive chairman Andrew Forrest on Tuesday said his charitable foundation is in favour of a pause on seabed mining, the first time a prominent mining executive has spoken out against the nascent industry.
Mining the seabed in areas outside national jurisdiction cannot begin until the International Seabed Authority, a UN body based in Jamaica, decides on regulations governing the industry. Some seabed mining already occurs in national waters but at much shallower depths, for example offshore Namibia where a De Beers subsidiary mines diamonds.
“If regulators can’t apply exactly the same whole-of-ecosystem studies, including flora, fauna, terrain and unintended consequence and the same or higher standards, as we do on land, then the seabed shouldn’t be mined,” Forrest said, speaking at a panel at the COP27 conference in Sharm el-Sheikh.